CEQA FEARS TAKING CALIFORNIA BACK TO STONE AGE

Chalk up another economic casualty to California’s over-regulated business climate: It’s Google Fiber, an ultrafast new broadband network that involves the building of an experimental broadband Internet network infrastructure using fiber-optic communication.

To save money, Google is partnering with cities – first Kansas City, Mo., and now Austin, Texas – to roll out the network, which lets residents of these cities buy Internet service so fast they can send a high-definition movie in a few seconds.

But don’t expect any local participation. According to reports, Google exec Milo Medin recently told a roomful of engineers in Santa Clara that because of the California Environmental Quality Act, Google Fiber has no plans to touch down in the company’s home state. He cited the risk of someone using CEQA to initiate a lawsuit to block development, noting that CEQA was used to delay the rollout of AT&T’s U-verse in San Francisco for years.

“A linchpin of Google’s approach is achieving scale at a fast rate,” a tech blog noted, “and the uncertainty caused by CEQA sinks their business case.”

Way to go. While Gov. Jerry Brown is sashaying around China, talking up our stringent environmental regulations, those same rules are hindering our own technological advances. Silicon Valley may be on the cutting edge of technology, but Sacramento may yet take us back into the Stone Age.